


death, suspended

by BeesKnees



Series: death, suspended [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anal Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, I wrote this so Joe could say "Nicolo" 35 times, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe's POV, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 13:07:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25850044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeesKnees/pseuds/BeesKnees
Summary: After they're captured, Nicky and Joe are separated from one another.___Joe's POV.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: death, suspended [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881268
Comments: 111
Kudos: 1008





	death, suspended

They have no time in the van. As soon as they finish wiping out the guards that pulled them apart, the van grinds to a stop. Joe stumbles into the wall and ends up on the bench seat while Nicky falls straight to his ass on the floor. 

There is no time to talk of breaking zip ties or picking the locks to the chains around their ankles. Five minutes more, Joe will think later. Five minutes more to that drive and they would have at least been able to move freely. It still wouldn't have been a fair fight when they were unarmed, but Joe would have liked their odds at least.

There is no time for Joe to be with Nicky, to feel with him – scared and stalwart. 

There is only the quick meeting of their eyes before the doors open and one of the bodies tumbles out. 

Unsurprisingly, Copley is there with the rest of the veritable army it took to bring them into custody. They're at some kind of private airfield, a pricey airplane stretched in front of them. A name is stamped garishly on the side, which, Joe thinks, will be rather helpful when Andy and Book come for them.

He takes in as much as he can as they first yank Nicky out of the van. Joe follows immediately after, bracing himself, but with no actual fuss. He's busy trying to take in everything he can, commit the scene to memory for anything that might help later. 

It takes him a second or more so to realize that he's been led past Nicky. 

“Get that one on the plane,” the man next to Copley says. “Get that one secured _properly_ in the van, would you?” 

“Mr. Keane,” Copley starts to protest.

“This is the plan for two,” Keane answers flatly. “We only got two. They go to separate labs.” 

Panic flares through Joe with such purity that he forgets every bit of training he's honed over centuries. He plants his feet, digging in and not allowing himself to be taken any closer to the steps to the plane.

“We stay together,” Joe snarls at Keane, and Keane raises an eyebrow at him, nonplussed. 

Joe twists to look back at Nicky. Nicky, who is standing, shocked, eyes wide. He's staring at Joe as the guards surrounding him exchange the zip ties around his wrists for chains, moving his hands behind his back.

“ _Nicolo!_ ” Joe calls. He jerks one of his arms free of his captors and sinks his elbow into the man's solar plexus. He spins, nearly tripping because of the way his feet are still shackled. This is a worst-case scenario already, but he can't be separated from Nicky. He feels the notion fraying at the edges of his sanity. It doesn't help that Quynh is so close in their memories. They may be a far cry from the days of witch trials, but he doesn't doubt that these people would find an equally cruel way to torture and separate them. Men with power and a cause they believe just are unending in what they're capable of.

“We stay together!” Joe says, more insistent. He takes half a step toward Keane before one of his guards gets a hold on him again.

Nicky's guards have finished strapping more chains on him and are trying to get him back into the van, which has been emptied of bodies but is still splattered with blood. 

“Nicolo!” Joe screams, giving into the fear that is devouring his insides. “ _Nicolo, look at me!_ ” The latter cry in Italian, the words rumbling through him as if they alone can bring Nicky back to him. 

Nicky listens: he twists his body the best that he can, still trying to block himself from being pushed back into the van. Their gazes connect once again, a punch to Joe's gut that is both salvation and damnation. He's lightheaded from the unsteadiness he can see in Nicky's expression, something that is so much louder to Joe than his own voice. When has he ever been this afraid? When has he ever been in more danger of actually losing Nicky?

“Enough,” Keane says, irritated. “They can't die, right?” 

“Well, no,” Copley begins to answer, but Keane doesn't wait for him. He takes two steps before shooting Nicky in the head. Nicky collapses into the arms of the men trying to hold him and they effortlessly lift him the rest of the way into the van. They drop him, splayed, on the van floor and go about the task of strapping him down.

There's a scream howling inside Joe at the sight, but it doesn't make its way to his throat. His rage has become a perfect thing inside of him. Jaw clenched, he looks from Nicky to Keane, memorizing the man's face so that when he sees him again he'll know who it is he's going to destroy. This is his man to kill.

“Enough,” Keane says again. This time he levels his gun at Joe's head.

…

Joe wakes up, trussed, during the plane's takeoff. His bindings have exactly no give this time, and his joints ache with the pull. Keane had also taken the time to gag him as well.

Joe fumes with anger as he works his way through checking for any weak points in his chains again. 

His anger is an easy emotion to fall into. Because the other alternatives are far worse: they involve thinking of Nicky on the ground below, waking up in the back of that van on his own. Shuddering awake and feeling the echoing pain of the bullet rattling around in his skull, blood still drying in his eyes, the metal flooring harsh and unforgiving against his healing body.

(Or worse, not waking up at all, just cold and still forever. And that, after centuries, being their last moment: only the fear and the hurt. Joe thinks he might vomit.)

And the plane is pulling further up, and, presumably, the van is turning back along roads, taking Joe and Nicky further apart.

…

Joe is unfocused once he's off the plane. There's too much to take in, and when he starts to try and concentrate, everything becomes too sharp: colors too bright, sound too loud. He can't distinguish faces from each other anymore, can scarcely recognize the language words are written in.

He's trying – he is. He's trying to remember everything and everyone he sees, because he knows that he needs to pay attention to chances to escape. He knows that when Andy and Book come for him, he's going to need to relay as much information as he can.

But he is in utter shambles. For every fact that he tries to sear into his mind, everything inside of him beats back with: _Where is Nicky? Where is Nicky?_ It's always been like this. He's useless when he doesn't know if Nicky is okay. 

So, to be blunt, Joe doesn't particularly give a fuck about whatever Merrick is going on about. So many words and so little actually said. 

“Where is Nicky?” Joe asks, the only words he now knows. He looks from Merrick to Keane. Merrick also looks uncertainly to Keane and Joe realizes with stunning clarity that he doesn't even know Nicky's name. A person has a name. A test subject does not. 

“The other one arrived safely as well,” Keane confirms, speaking to Merrick. “He's waiting for you at the other lab.” 

“I'll say hello to him for you, shall I?” Merrick asks with a flippancy that borders on cruelty all on its own. 

Joe curses him and – and his mother – in three different languages before they drug him.

…

The pain is easy. After a thousand deaths, pain is a familiar friend and he knows that he can survive all of this. His body is resilient. It is made for eternity.

It's their hearts that are fragile, if their group is anything to go by. Whatever made them didn't consider the strain of a thousand years of loss on the human spirit.

So, he is collected from. They take his blood and his tissue, dig parts of his inside to the outside world to label and analyze and whatever it is they intend to do. He dies only the one time and comes back gasping under the fluorescent lights. Before his mind is fully his own, before he remembers what has happened, he looks for Nicky. 

There are so few times that he's died and not woken up to Nicky's face.

When he can't find Nicky, he's reminded of the part that he truly cannot bear: that Nicky is in some identical place, being cut into and carved upon. He tries to think of what he knows of Merrick's company, where some secondary lab might be. He tries to think of what major cities were within driving distance.

He tries to think of whether it's more likely that Andy and Book will come for him first or Nicky. Nicky, he tells them mentally. He'll be furious with them otherwise, he tells them. But he knows it won't make much of a difference because to Andy it will be a tactical decision.

As it turns out, it's not really much of a decision. When they get captured, Andy and Booker are brought into the same lab as him. 

“Where's Nicky?” is the first thing that Andy asks him, her voice threadbare, her eyes somehow empty and too full at the same time.

Joe shakes his head, because those are still the only words that he knows and he doesn't have an answer. 

…

His anger at Keane and Merrick becomes small. The balm of their deaths is little. They are men driven by the simplicity of greed, trading in the vocation of violence. They have hurt him badly, but Joe is used to men like them. 

Booker. Booker is the one who has no excuse.

If there are a deficit of words to describe what Nicky is to him, there are also a deficit of words to describe what Andy and Booker are to him. They are family. In the billions of people who have passed through this world and into the afterlife, their numbers are singular. They are parts of each other. Joe loves Booker and Andy beyond what he was capable of understanding in the first of his lives. 

He doesn't know how to grapple with how he feels, particularly when he's ungrounded from Nicky.

Booker is desolate in the backseat of the car, pain and penance ringing out across to all of them. And still, Joe cannot let it go, because he can't understand how Booker could have done this and because nothing will ever be payment enough.

“You don't even believe your own bullshit,” Joe snaps at him, his insides still singing with the memories of needles. “We would have given you anything. We would have worked with a scientist to help you figure it out. We would have _helped you through the loneliness._ ” They all know it. Even Joe and Nicky, even if Andy and Booker don't see it. Booker is young in the scheme of things. The loneliness changes and shifts. 

He wants to throttle Booker, and he knows that it will do them no good. They would both just feel the futility of the act.

Joe intends to say more, but his throat closes up, clotting with the only words that matter: _Where is Nicky?_ Both Keane and Merrick had taken that secret with them. Copley is looking. It's not enough. It won't be enough until he's holding Nicky again.

“We'll find him,” Andy says, quiet and steadfast. Nile takes his hand. And all Joe can think is that he can't understand how Book threw this all away like it was nothing.

…

It takes Copley 48 hours to figure out where they took Nicky. Each one of those hours is a raw drag on Joe. He can't sleep. He paces and he frets and he snaps. 

He relents only when he gives himself over to Andy or Nile. He walks outside with Nile and he lets her read things to him or turn on the television or just tell him about her family and her life from before. Andy makes him take two sleeping pills with a reminder that they're going to need him fresh when they go to pick up Nicky.

So, he sleeps. Alone and thrashing and dreaming of Nicky drowning under an ocean, waiting for him.

When Copley finally comes through, they head out right away, which is a small consolation to Joe. Andy insists that Booker come with, which is not. He understands the so-called logic of Andy's argument: she is fragile, Nile is new, and Joe is off balance. Booker ups their chances of getting Nicky back. She hurts and smarts with what Booker has done to them, but she doesn't understand that Joe will never trust him again. 

How could he? They all shake with the knowledge of what was done to Quynh and the guilt and horror that Andy carries with her because of it. And Booker willingly chose to condemn them to that fate.

In truth, Joe is afraid of what he will do to Booker if Nicky is not okay. He will break Booker and break himself in the process. 

After all their prep and anxiety, this lab is far easier than the last. It's smaller with less tech and security than the headquarters, but it also looks like it's been mostly abandoned while the rest of the company struggles through the loss of its CEO and many of the top doctors.

Most everything here is in stasis, suspended. Waiting for when and if people come back.

Copley shuts off the security system before they even get there, so it's a proverbial walk in the park with nothing recording them. It takes them less than 5 minutes to find the lab where Nicky is being kept.

Nicky, too, is in stasis.

Joe has to bite back a sob when he finally sets eyes on him. 

He's so still. Joe is perpetually in tune with the ways that Nicky is in motion – what a quirk of his lips might mean or the twitch of an eyebrow. He falls asleep to the sound of Nicky's breathing and he wakes when Nicky begins to shift across the bedsheets. 

But now, Nicky is still, death suspended. Neither dead nor alive. They've carved his chest and the top of his head open, holding everything in place with a kind of metal lining that keeps Nicky from healing together. His heart is stopped in his chest, pinned in place.

Everything inside of Joe goes weak and wild in equal measure. He has no idea how long Nicky has been like this and now he's afraid, a new seed of fear planted in his own heart. What if it's been too long? What if whatever heals them has a time limit and Nicky's been outside of it for hours? What if everything inside of him is too far gone to be smoothed back to what it was? The muscle in Joe's jaw jumps, but he can't get any words to come.

“Shit,” Nile says from somewhere behind him, still almost reverent in her cursing.

“C'mere, Nile,” Andy says, gesturing for her. They go around to Nicky's head and begin to work the metal lining out of Nicky.

Book stays back, and Joe is both grateful for it and forgets about Book all at the same time.

With trembling hands, he steps up next to Nicky and takes out clamps and medical equipment in his chest before beginning to work at the border. In all of his long life, he will never forget this moment. It is suddenly clearer than anything else. He has killed Nicky so many times – and watched him die so many times more, and somehow this is worse than all of those. In those moments, Nicky was still fighting. In many of them, Joe was still fighting beside Nicky. But in this one, in this terribly tangible and unending moment, the fight is already over and Joe just doesn't know if he's won or not.

But as soon as they're not being restricted, everything inside of Nicky's chest begins to knit itself back together. Breath rattles in his lungs. His heart thumps a beat before Joe loses sight of it. 

Joe's hands scramble to Nicky's face. His fingers frame Nicky's cheeks.

“Nicolo?” he asks – begs. He knows that Nile and Andy are still working and, yet, Joe desperately needs Nicky to open his eyes. 

Nicky takes another gasping, uneven breath.

“Nicolo?” Joe says again, desperation growing in his voice. And then, Nicky does open his eyes. His gaze is hazy and disorientated, and it takes several seconds before his eyes manage to focus on Joe. Joe feels pierced by the color of them – the first thing he ever noticed about Nicky, back even before he ran a sword through him.

“Nicky?” Joe asks, so clearly on the verge of tears now. 

“Who...?” Nicky half asks. His voice is off, the single word slightly slurred. 

“You gotta give him a minute, Joe,” Andy says. The last of the metal lining from Nicky's head clatters to the ground. “He's still healing.” She looks pointedly at him, but the last of Joe's tenuous hold on himself and his emotions is gone. 

“Nicky,” Joe says through his tears, patting Nicky's cheeks with his fingers as if he can bring Nicky back faster. 

Nicky's eyes flutter shut, his mouth moving as if trying to frame a word – so clearly _who_ again, and part of Joe is almost glad that Nicky doesn't get the words out, because if Nicky manages to ask, “ _Who are you?_ ” Joe is going to lose it entirely. 

“Stay with him,” Andy says to Nile, and it's the only warning that Joe has before Andy grabs him by the arm and pulls him away from Nicky. 

If Booker or Nile had been the ones to grab him, Joe has no idea how that would have ended. Given that it's Andy, he barely restrains himself, ever aware that she's so easily broken now. Still, it's a near thing. He does still curse at her, yank his arm back violently as soon as he can.

She drags him to just outside the lab, just outside the door and grabs his face in both of her hands, bringing their foreheads together.

“Breathe, Joe,” she says, low. “He's here. His brain has to heal. The worse the injury, the more time it takes. You know that. So, fucking breathe.” 

He does, even though it hurts. He meets her gaze like they're having a fight, and she never lets go of him the whole time. 

And then, like a clarion call: “Joe! _Yusuf!_ ”

He tears away from Andy and throws himself back through the doors. Nicky is barely off the table, standing on still-shaking legs. And yet, they collide with one another. Probably rougher than they should, given Nicky's state, but Joe needs to feel him with an intensity he hasn't felt in a long time. He has his arms flung around Nicky's torso and he buries his face in Nicky's neck for a moment. He's crying – really crying, a release of everything since he woke up in a van next to Nicky's prone form. 

Nicky shushes him and still Joe can't stop crying. Nicky guides his head up and they kiss messily, mouths askew. Joe is half ready to still plead with every force in the universe, as if he's afraid that this might not be real, and Nicky is whispering quiet endearments and reassurances to him in Italian – their language, if there ever was one.

“ _You were gone_ ,” Joe tells him.

“ _No,_ ” Nicky answers. “ _No, I'm here, see?_ ”

Joe nods unevenly, pulling back a fraction so that he can run his hands down over Nicky's chest, to see and feel for sure that he is complete and that he is _him_ again.

“Perhaps we should save that for the bedroom, no?” Nicky asks teasingly, with the hint of a crooked grin. Joe laughs a little wetly, the moment only ruined by the fact that Nicky winks over his shoulder at Booker. Booker at least has the decency to flinch a little, and Joe pulls Nicky closer to him again. He doesn't want Booker anywhere near Nicky, but the time to break Nicky's heart on that score isn't now.

“Good to have you back, Nicky,” Andy says, reaching forward to squeeze one of his hands – not daring to try and unwind Joe from him for her own hug. “Let's get out of here.” 

…

Joe thought that he couldn't be more angry with Booker than he was. But then he sees Nicky's expression as Andy explains what happened. He sees the shock and hurt, grief and mourning, that flicker over Nicky's face at the initial revelation. And then he sees that simmer of anger that Joe understands, that maybe even Andy doesn't understand the depth of in Nicky: that Nicky's real outrage comes from the fact that Booker sold Joe out. That Nicky now knows that every needle that bit into Joe, every bit of Joe that was harvested, was done in Booker's name and by Booker's action. 

Nicky will perhaps forgive Booker more quickly. He will be the one, later, to point out that they may have been lonely in their unending time, but they've still always had each other. They've never truly been alone. That the threat of being separated gave them a taste of what Booker has known for the last 200 years. Nicky will feel sorrow _for_ Booker, and he will work to make sure that Booker doesn't feel that same biting loneliness of eternity ever again. Nicky will likely be the one to say he trusts Book again, too; it might only be known to Joe that Nicky will never fully trust Booker with Joe again. That, for the duration of time, no matter how much Nicky may come to love Book again, he will hesitate if they are to split in anything and Joe is to go with Booker. 

Booker is the only thing on their mind before they retreat to their bedroom.

Once they are past that threshold, Booker is the last thing.

They reach for each other in tandem, even though Nicky hasn't showered and tastes almost antiseptic. Joe could be damned to care. He presses Nicky up against the door, needing their bodies as flush together as possible. He has no patience for anything more. He shoves a hand up underneath Nicky's borrowed T-shirt and splays his fingers along Nicky's ribs, able to feel his heart hammering away. Alive. Unequivocally so.

“Joe,” Nicky whispers against his mouth, his voice a rasp of a thing. Joe bites at his lower lip, pulling away only to scrape his teeth down over Nicky's throat. He rubs his own cheek against the stubble that Nicky has accrued since they were separated. 

“ _I need you_ ,” Joe whispers in Italian against Nicky's pulse.

“ _You have me,_ ” Nicky answers with no hesitation. He slides one hand up Joe's back, lingering in between his shoulder blades before cupping the back of his head. His fingers catch in Joe's curls, holding him as if Joe is in danger of going somewhere. 

They cling to one another, Joe's face remaining buried in the dark spot underneath Nicky's ear as he begins to roll their hips together. He needs him too urgently for anything more refined. Nicky seems to feel the same: moaning and bucking his hips against Joe. Normally, they would try to be a little more contained out of respect for their roommates, but that's simply not happening tonight.

Joe slots a thigh in between Nicky's legs and they go to work grinding messily against each other, Nicky's breathing getting louder and heavier with every thrust of his hips. 

“ _Beautiful,_ ” Joe breathes against Nicky's skin, and Nicky laughs, breathless. If he has some smart comment to make, it's lost. He clutches at Joe more tightly, one hand still in his hair, the other dragging down over Joe's back and hip. He comes with a shuddering moan, and Joe can't help but fall right after, listening to Nicky's pulse thumping with arousal. 

Nicky tilts his chin up with a press of his fingers and kisses him again, deep and slow this time. They stay like that for a few moments more, just languishing in the feeling of being close and safe.

“Shower,” Nicky murmurs after a moment, nudging their noses together.

“Yes, all right,” Joe agrees. They stumble into the adjoining bathroom, still unwilling to take their hands off each other in some way. They work on undressing Nicky first – which is really more Joe undressing Nicky, sliding his hands across every inch of skin as he reveals it. He takes his time to mouth at Nicky's shoulder until Nicky pushes him playfully away so that he can tug Joe's shirt and jeans off – with far less patience than Joe.

“You know,” Nicky says, his voice warm with teasing as he lets his fingers catch in Joe's chest hair. “If my kiss still thrills you after a millennia, what does my dick do for you?”

Joe lets out a bark of laughter.

“Nico, you're a menace,” Joe answers. He slaps Nicky on the ass and then guides him into the shower. He climbs in after and they slow a little then, each of them washing the other, fingers gentle and searching even if they know that there are no physical wounds left behind. 

“ _You are okay?_ ” Nicky asks when the warm water is about to run out, pressing a kiss above Joe's heart. 

“Yes,” Joe promises, scrubbing his fingers along the side of Nicky's head. He knows what Nicky is asking and, later, he'll tell Nicky his own sordid tales from his time as a lab rat. But for now, that doesn't matter. Now is just for the knowing that they will be okay. 

Joe turns the water off and Nicky reaches for the towels. The last time they'd stayed at this safe house, they'd invested in some stupidly plush towels, and Joe is grateful for it now. He works it through his own hair even as he watches Nicky – and Nicky aware, watching him right back. They leave the towels on the bathroom floor, something for them to clean up in the morning.

They climb into bed together, huddled under the sheets, both of them on their sides and facing each other. Nicky rests his forehead gently against Joe's and closes his eyes for a moment, but Joe is almost afraid to close his eyes as if Nicky might disappear again. He rests a hand lightly on Nicky's hip. The world turns softer and safer. It becomes theirs again – Nicolo and Yusuf who had traded away a life of explosive violence for lives that are mostly written in dedication to the best of the world. They travel and they love. They feast and listen to music and celebrate art. They partake in the best of humanity and, yes, sometimes, they still return to their violent roots to try and pluck some bad bits of humanity away. But they like to think they are no longer defined by that violence. And it is easiest to believe in moments like this, when they are curled together, combining their hope that tomorrow will bring something new and beautiful. 

“ _I dreamt of you,_ ” Nicky says suddenly, pressing his fingertips to Joe's lips. “ _Of the first time we met. The first times we killed each other._ ” 

Joe hums out an answer, his lips pillowing a shadow of a kiss against Nicky's fingers. They're quite for awhile after that, letting their bodies relax into the feeling of safety, letting the desperation wick off them. They twist their legs together and trace every other inch of the other with quiet fingertips. They could easily stay like that for the rest of the night and it could be enough. 

But at some point, when the world has faded to just starlight around them, Nicky brushes his mouth back over Joe's.

“ _Take me,_ ” he says with a low voice, full of intent. Joe nods, kisses him again.

This is the inverse of everything that happened when they first walked into the room. Nicky rolls over onto his other side while Joe goes to get the lube. When he returns, he strips back the comforter so that he can see more of Nicky's body. He slides back in beside Nicky and goes about the task of opening him up, the moment unrushed. Despite the fact that he can't see Nicky's face, he knows that Nicky is biting at his lower lip, his eyes fluttering open and shut. It takes some time, but eventually Nicky begins to push back against Joe's hand, trying to spur him on. Joe smiles faintly and bites gently at the back of Nicky's shoulder. 

“Impatient,” Joe tuts even if it's not true in this instance.

“For you?” Nicky answers wryly. “Always.”

Joe laughs and rewards Nicky by pulling his hand back. He presses himself even closer to Nicky, nudging his cock slowly inside of him. The position won't allow for any deep, hard thrusts, but every bit of them is touching. Their legs tangle together again, Joe rests his chin on Nicky's shoulder, and wraps an arm around his torso. Nicky reaches up to lace their fingers together. They rock together, slow and steady and simmering. 

“I love you,” Nicky murmurs in English, but Joe can hear the cadence of it in every language they know. There is no one language that convey everything they are and feel to one another. All of the languages they know together don't accomplish the task. Usually, they don't feel the need to put such notions to language. They know: the only equivalent each finds in his own love is the answer of the other's.

But sometimes – hard times, times like know – they feel they should try anyway. Just to be sure. Joe's words in the van were a paltry attempt at that – something slightly more tangible for Nicky to carry with him if that had been the last time they were to see each other. 

“You are everything,” Joe answers into Nicky's ear. He can feel the shiver that sends down Nicky's spine. They retreat from words again, letting their bodies converse. Joe's hips grind a little more insistently against Nicky's ass and he slips his hand down so that he can begin stroking Nicky off, bringing them quickly toward the edge of pleasure.

“Joe, Joe, Joe,” Nicky whispers again and again until he comes, tightening around Joe and somehow pulling him closer. 

“Nicky,” Joe answers, a kiss to his ear, stroking Nicky through the aftershocks until he comes as well. He groans and buries his teeth into Nicky's shoulder. Nicky jerks a little and then relaxes, sighing. 

Joe doesn't pull out even once they're finished. He rests his head against the back of Nicky's and closes his eyes. 

He falls asleep to the sound of Nicky's breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
> \-- Short comments  
> \-- Long comments  
> \-- Questions  
> \-- “<3” as extra kudos  
> \-- Reader-reader interaction
> 
> This author replies to comments.
> 
> shout at me on [tumblr](https://kneesofthebee.tumblr.com/)


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